


Old Chronicles of Love, It's Age Old Pain

by KDblack



Category: Sengoku Basara, 学園BASARA | Gakuen Basara | Gakuen Basara: Samurai High School (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Multi, Past Character Death, an attempt at reconciling actual history with basara history, sengoku warlords are alarmingly cool with murder, vaguely historical but don't quote me on any of this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KDblack/pseuds/KDblack
Summary: The Gakuen Basara crew regain memories of their past lives. Keiji's crying all over Hideyoshi, Mitsunari is in therapy, Oichi won't let Nagamasa out of her sight... and Masamune is avoiding Yukimura.
Relationships: Date Masamune/Sanada Yukimura, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been taking up space on my hard drive for like a year, so I decided to throw it out there.

There's no warning when the cycle of reincarnation breaks. It just happens. One moment, Yukimura is in homeroom, trying his hardest to pay attention to the first lecture of the day and not doze off in the nice, warm sunbeam coming in through the window. The next, he is a child staring down an unimpressed redheaded teenager, trying to convince Sasuke that he's outgrown his bamboo training spear and needs a real weapon. No, he's an adolescent standing in formation, steel heavy in his hand, spirits soaring as he prepares for his first battle. No, he's almost an adult, kneeling before his lordship's throne, swearing to bring all of Japan beneath the banner of Takeda – 

No. He's at Sekigahara, a man grown, fighting to stay upright while he chokes on his own blood. It's so dark. Only three colours left. Torn blue fabric. Six claws streaming red. One golden eye searing brightly through the darkness of Ishida and Tokugawa's eclipse. 

A roaring dragon, come to meet him one last time. Come to swallow him whole.

Yukimura shoots to his feet with a yell. His desk splinters under his flailing fists. The part of him which is still Sanada Yukimura, 17, Soccer club captain, cringes and waits for punishment. All that he hears is screaming. He stands there, half-in his body, half-out, as the class dissolves into pandemonium. Mouri rises to his feet, his mask of calm ever so slightly cracked, and walks outside with a slow, deliberate pace Yukimura has never seen before. Chousokabe should be the first to tease him about it, but Chousokabe has his head buried in his hands, deep, ugly sobs bubbling up from his chest.

Yukimura's feet move him forward, towards his friend. His mouth is already open when he remembers Shikoku. The ruins of it. What Mouri did to Chousokabe's people.

He should... probably leave Chousokabe alone right now.

The ground lurches under his feet. For a moment, the whole building vibrates. Toyotomi must've hit something. Yukimura reaches for a spear that isn't there before he remembers that Toyotomi is just a student. Not an enemy. Not a conqueror. Not a murderer.

Outside, one sound rises above the sea of noise: a deep, melodic voice raised in a heartbroken wail. Keiji. Another shriek erupts right after it, deeper, darker, uglier. Ishida screaming Tokugawa's name is a daily occurrence, but he's never sounded so hateful before. Part of Yukimura stands at attention, ready to continue a battle five hundred years lost. The rest of him... dithers.

What is he meant to do in this situation? What would his lordship do? Should – should he find his lordship? A minute ago, Yukimura would have done just that, but a minute ago, his understanding of tactics was limited to a flawless losing streak at Battleships. Now a little voice that sounds like Sasuke keeps hissing _reconnaissance first, danna_ and _know your enemy._

“Know my enemy,” Yukimura murmurs, raising his empty hand to eye level. “Who's my enemy?”

From one life to the next, the answer remains the same. But when he looks for his quarry, he cannot find it. Imagawa-sensei is crying under his desk. His classmates stare silently into space, or move jerkily for the door, or stumble weeping toward friends and enemies alike. All but one.

Masamune – Date-dono – _Date Masamune_ is gone. Yukimura didn't even notice him leave.

* * *

As it turns out, the effects are pretty limited. Barely anyone outside the city was affected, and the intensity of the memories got weaker further from campus. It makes the news and there's talk of shutting down the school for a while, but Headmaster Oda puts a stop to that by glaring down the opposition. He may actually be scarier this time around. Even Matsunaga quails before him. Assuming 'quail' is the correct word. From what Yukimura can make out of the televised press conference, Matsunaga looks pretty happy to have been put in his place – 

_Oh._ Yukimura swallows thickly and sinks deep into the couch cushions. _Oh dear._

“Oh dear, indeed,” Sasuke drawls into his ear. “Let's just cut that thought off at the pass, shall we?”

Yukimura jolts. “Sasuke! When did you get here?”

“I've been here the whole time, danna,” the redhead lies. “You need to work on those observation skills.”

Sasuke hasn't changed much, to Yukimura's practiced eye. He's always moved a bit too quietly and fluidly, and apparently his ninja arts transferred over, as did that blunt, mercenary nature. Maybe there's a touch of new coldness in his eyes, a fresh edge to his smiles, but that too is comforting in its familiarity.

“You need to stop hiding in my shadow!” Yukimura tells him earnestly. “I appreciate your concern, but I am hardly about to be assassinated in my own living room!”

A muscle jumps in Sasuke's jaw. “I'll take your suggestions into account.”

In other words, _hahaha no._ Yukimura supposes he deserves that. After all, he's the one who went on without Sasuke, knowing his shinobi would be left behind. He wonders how long Sasuke lived after he fell at Osaka Castle. Yukimura hopes it was a long life, full of happiness, but somehow he suspects that Sasuke fell shortly after he did, at the same hands. Date Masamune had always walked on eggshells last time around. From time to time, he'd spoken obliquely of past attempts on his life, and his one eye saw deeper into the shadows than Yukimura's ever had. If anyone could take down Sasuke, it would be him.

He could just ask Sasuke. He probably should. But every time Yukimura goes to open his mouth, he remembers the pallid look on Sasuke's face when they first found each other after remembering. The desperation in his eyes as he emerged from the shadows and hauled Yukimura close. The desperate trembling of broad shoulders under his palms, the faint dampness of tears soaking into his collar. It was the first time in either life he'd seen Sasuke cry.

No, he won't be bringing up their deaths to Sasuke anytime soon. 

“You could go home to sleep, at least,” he says instead.

A disinterested 'hn' noise.

“It can't be comfortable hiding in there all the time.”

Sasuke tilts his head and smiles, a thin, bleak thing. “I've been through worse.”

 _Yeah,_ Yukimura thinks helplessly, _I can tell._

That night, he dreams of claws sunk deep in his belly and an eye like the sun.

* * *

Masamune isn't there when he goes back to school.


	2. Chapter 2

The first day's absence makes sense, or at least it would make sense for anyone other than Date Masamune, whom Yukimura's two lifetimes agree should have taken this as a challenge. Still, he’s hardly the only one playing hooky. Ishida isn’t here, and the halls are eerily silent in his absence. Keiji isn't here, and the lack of boisterous laughter and monkey chitters makes the building less welcoming. Azai isn't here, and as annoying as his yelling about justice can be, school doesn't feel like school without it. Oichi isn't here, either – that, Yukimura can live with. Apologies to Lady Oichi, but she is the single most terrifying creature Yukimura has ever stood across the battlefield from. 0/10, too much cry-laughing, would not fight again.

Despite his best efforts to pay attention, he drifts through the day in a haze of thought. He barely even notices Sasuke skipping class in favour of lurking in his shadow. He does notice Kasuga stumbling down the hall sobbing during lunch break, but when he takes an automatic step toward her, she glares at him with red-rimmed eyes and vanishes in a puff of smoke. For a second, he thinks about going after her and trying to figure out what's wrong. Then he realizes she was stumbling away from Mr. Uesugi's office, remembers the way her past self looked at the past Uesugi Kenshin, and goes beet red.

After that, there's nothing he wants more than to just distance himself from the situation entirely. If Masamune were here, he'd tease Yukimura mercilessly, so Yukimura almost finds it in him to be happy that the One-Eyed Dragon is skipping. He spends the rest of the day alternating between dazed melancholy and fits of manic energy, which he's self-aware enough to admit is basically just business as usual.

Oyakata-sama isn't there, either, but that's easier to understand. His lordship has always strived to be as unpredictable as he is mighty. Besides, it's not like Yukimura needs to talk about this to anyone. He'll be fine on his own. Masamune can't avoid him for that long.

The second day's absence says otherwise. This is where Yukimura would seek out Katakura to demand answers, except that Katakura isn't here, either. Neither is the rest of Masamune's inner circle at the baseball club. It's concerning. Most of the shock has worn off by now, so Yukimura finds himself bored in class as the teachers stare blankly out the window for minutes at a time. There's so much less chatter in the halls now. Yukimura makes eye contact with Tokugawa for a second and he falls over in his haste to get away. It's almost offensive, except that Yukimura remembers how Tokugawa looked away so guiltily on the battlefield, bare seconds before Masamune tore into Yukimura like hurricane. Maybe that guilt has lingered. Or maybe it was Sasuke glaring viciously from his shadow that made Tokugawa flinch away. Yukimura's caught him sharpening his knives pointedly at more than a few people who, once upon a time, came down on Tokugawa's side. 

It's worrying. Maybe Yukimura doesn't need to talk about this, but he's starting to suspect he's the only one.

Azai comes back on the third day, jaw set as firmly as ever. If his eyes are a little swollen, his hands a little less steady, Yukimura isn't inclined to call him out. Oichi walks placidly behind him, her face a blank Noh mask, long trailing limbs of shadow wrapped around her boyfriend from head to toe. They don't seem to be interfering with how Azai moves – if anything, he seems comforted by their presence – but the threat makes Yukimura shudder. 

Oichi's eyes are pitch black, deep and filled with nameless things. He nods and greets them anyway, because it's polite, and for a moment she looks at him and smiles. 

“Ichi!” Azai calls her forward in a tight, strained voice. 

Her smile grows lighter. “Coming, Nagamasa-sama! Please wait for Ichi!”

Something in Yukimura's chest twists as their backs vanish. Masamune still hasn't returned to school. Yukimura searches for him in the halls every day, every hour, every second, but there's nothing. Even the echo of him is fading. 

Classes are still kind of useless, so Yukimura sits through them in silence for days before he makes up his mind. Almost a week to the day, he leaves school as usual and makes his way to a building he's only been to once before, with his lordship, as part of a character-building outing. Yukimura's not sure if it successfully built any character. What he is sure of is that if he's going to find Masamune anywhere, it will probably be here.

He's right. The museum has plenty on a Date Masamune, just not the one he's looking for.

The Sengoku period's Date Masamune lived 68 years. He made Sendai prosperous, recited poetry at Tokugawa Ieyasu's funeral, and saw his grandchildren before finally dying of throat cancer. The museum has a ton of artifacts from his reign, some of which Yukimura recognizes. When he gets home, he finds Google is filled with pictures of what Masamune theorized to have looked like. Yukimura scrolls all the way down the list of results before he sighs and closes the tab. The statues in those photos don't look like the man he remembers. They look even less like the Date Masamune who chases him through the hallways at school – the one whose chair has sat empty almost a week.

“I don't know why I thought I'd find you here,” Yukimura grumbles. He gets up to wait for his lordship's return. It won't be that long before his lordship comes by to check on him. Maybe if he gets himself punched through a wall or two, the sharp, prickly feeling in his skull will come loose.

Except Yukimura is, once again, wrong. His lordship doesn't come by Yukimura's apartment any more than he does seek Yukimura out at school. Before this, Yukimura would have been honoured by his lordship's trust in his ability to take care of himself. Now, he's just worried. The memory of Takeda Shingen, bedridden and looking far too small, won't leave him alone. It dogs his trail as surely as Masamune's absence.

“Is he all right?” he asks finally. 

“He's probably fine,” Sasuke says after a moment. The words bubble up strangely through the shadows. That's the only reason they would sound so flat and reluctant. “It takes more than a few bad memories to kill a dragon.”

Yukimura blinks. “I was talking about his lordship.”

“Oh. Yeah, don't worry, he's fine. Just got a few things to sort out before he comes to see you.”

Ah! That makes sense. “As expected of you, Sasuke! You sought him out before I even considered he might need help, didn't you?”

The shadows cough. “Nah. I'm just good at reading people, danna.”

That also makes sense. Perceptiveness has always been one of Sasuke's most admirable qualities. Yukimura wishes he had more of it himself.

Maybe, if he were better at reading people, he would know where his heart has gone.

* * *

History says that Sanada Genjiro Yukimura had two wives: one called Chikurin-in and one whose name is lost to history. This is not untrue. However, it is only the pale, washed-out edges of the real story. If Yukimura presses himself, he can remember his wives' faces, but in his heart lies only one image: Date Masamune, 19 years old, leaning much too far back on his horse for comfort, teeth bared, arms crossed, looking directly at Yukimura. Wild hair just brushes his shoulders; his right eye is covered by a plain and unadorned patch. Blue armour shines like scales in the afternoon light. Each thud of his horse's hooves kicks up sparks.

There are no sketches of him like this in the history books. The Date-dono Sanada Genjiro Yukimura held in his heart did not survive to be passed down through the centuries. Yukimura is beginning to wonder if he even survived Sekigahara. Did the One-Eyed Dragon die with him?

It seems unspeakably arrogant to make assumptions. But as the days pass and Masamune remains missing, Yukimura doesn't know what else to do. He visits every spot he's picked a fight with Masamune in this life and finds them all empty, so he returns to the museum time and again, reading the descriptions on every plaque three times over. He even cracks open his history textbook and reads it through, skipping over the bits he already knows. This is how he learns about that Date Masamune contracted smallpox as a child. How he lost an eye to the disease. How at age 17 he set out to change the Date clan's fortunes and succeeded. How his mother never forgave him for his weakness and did her best to poison him, until finally Masamune had the younger brother she favoured killed and his mother exiled. How his father was taken hostage by a surrendering enemy, and ordered Masamune to shoot through him. How Masamune did.

These events must surely have happened, but Yukimura has only the barest recollection of Date Terumune's death, and nothing at all for the rest of them. This shouldn't be surprising. In both lives, Masamune has always kept his cards close to his chest. Somehow, Yukimura still manages to feel a little betrayed.

He's learning more about Date Masamune's life from history books than he did from the man in question. At the same time, these dry texts barely capture the Masamune Yukimura knew.

Two weeks after the incident, Masamune still hasn't returned to school. Yukimura finds his way into the office and, with Sasuke's help, starts going through files. It's a horrendous breach of school rules. He'll be in so much trouble if he's caught. Keiji would be proud, but Keiji isn't back yet, either.

Date Masamune is still enrolled at Basara Academy; he's just taken an unspecified leave of absence. The explanation given is a death in the family. Yukimura reads through the transcript of the call Katakura made on Masamune's behalf and relaxes despite himself. At least Masamune isn't gone for good.

Not like Ishida, whose file Sasuke dug up first.

...Yukimura should talk to Tokugawa. It can't be easy to know the other half of your soul has dropped out of school just to avoid you.


End file.
